


The Department of Magical Law Enforcement

by RealHousewivesOfDiagonAlley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Romance, Explicit Language, F/M, HP: EWE, Implied Sexual Content, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-22 21:12:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13772661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RealHousewivesOfDiagonAlley/pseuds/RealHousewivesOfDiagonAlley
Summary: At the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, it's all fun and games until Draco Malfoy catches a case of unrequited infatuation with his temperamental coworker.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> First Dramione. Please share your thoughts! (edited to change the rating for future content)

 

One Friday morning, an out-of-breath Malfoy nearly crashed into her as he hurried to shut the door of their shared office behind him, exclaiming, in a half-whisper, “Granger, you _have_ to do me a solid this once.” Seconds later, he was calling her over from beneath her desk, huffing and puffing with an apparent mixture of fear and excitement dancing in his eyes.

 

“ _What the fuck are you doing, Malfoy_?” she hissed. She rushed over to her desk, peeking at him from above. “I was just on my way to deliver the”––

 

“ _Not now!_ ” he whispered back, tugging at her robe. “Could you just sit here until he gets here?”

 

Hermione wasn’t quite sure why, but she obliged, gently kicking him as punishment for disturbing her morning ( _“Ow! What are your shoes made of? Lead?”_ ) and about to ask him what he was up to today. She knew, of course, that it must have something to do with the Aurors––as it always did––and, most likely, with Harry, who barged into the office without so much as a knock to warn her of his intrusion.

 

“Where is he?” he demanded.

 

She eyed her friend cooly, raising an eyebrow to convey her disapproval. “Good morning to you too, Harry.” She could feel Malfoy’s warm, breathy giggle on her shin and became aware of the limited space beneath her desk. Why did she agree to play into this at all? On some level, Hermione supposed that “taking a piss” (Malfoy’s words, not hers) out of Harry wasn’t bad at all, and, on some days, even a _fun_ diversion from the ennui of their paperwork-filled jobs. Though he was her best and oldest friend, the senior auror often posed challenges for her (and Malfoy’s) work. Despite her historical alliances, the dynamics of the workspace quickly, and without too much self-doubt, pushed her to clandestinely side with Malfoy.

 

Plus, it wasn’t as if Harry was completely innocent. This “prank war,” as she called it, between Malfoy and him had grown to a warlike scale, every day calling for retaliation that often caused Hermione some level of inconvenience. For instance, when she and Malfoy charmed Harry’s glasses to get stuck into the wall outside of the women’s bathrooms closest to Hermione’s office, Harry foolishly decided to retrieve them using a bombardment charm. For the next two weeks, Hermione had to trudge downstairs, to the _bloody Daily Prophet_ offices, to use the loo. Anyone with a brain knew that a simple, clean dislodgement spell would have been less inconvenient. Luckily, she had Malfoy send Harry twenty owls to the Auror office, each with a complaint about minor infractions that a “good samaritan” witnessed in Diagon Alley.

 

Did this sound childish? Absolutely. But what else was Hermione Granger supposed to do? Stay out of it? Pretend like getting even didn’t matter to her? Nonsense.

 

Though she couldn’t consider them close, Hermione could comfortably call Malfoy a good work friend now. After their hostile to awkward beginnings as coworkers, the two developed a friendly rapport after discovering that they had much more in common than a past childhood-turned-political rivalry. He was still a total snob, swotty, and infuriating on most days, but Hermione appreciated how Malfoy valued efficiency and did not tolerate incompetence. Based on just those traits, Hermione quickly found herself at ease when working with Malfoy, whose meticulousness matched her devotion to accuracy and timeliness. They were, in short, a “dream team” in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

  


Looking up at her flustered best friend, any sign of compuncture for helping Malfoy quickly faded away with the memory of running into Rita Skeeter in the loo. Putting on her most exasperated tone, she said, “Harry, what is it? I’m very busy, as you can see, and don’t particularly care for these rude interruptions to my routine.”

 

“PMS?”

 

“I’m busy, so I have PMS. Is that the conclusion you’re drawing? After all of this time, you really think that some sexist nonsense is going to get me to help you?”

 

She could sense his anger dissipate into embarrassment. Ignoring her, he continued to explain. “It’s Malfoy again. He’s hexed the photo of Ginny on my desk to sing a disco rendition of the Hogwarts school song every time I go to sit on my chair. And that’s not even the worst part! He made her sing it in, please try imagining this, a _male falsetto_.”

 

“I thought you quite liked the Bee Gees. That doesn’t sound so bad.”

 

“That’s not the point, Hermione! Do you have any idea how humiliating today has been for me?” Harry whined.

 

She could feel Malfoy’s snickering become more audible, and so made a show out of slamming a particularly large file folder onto her desk, causing Harry to wince. “Are you sure it was Malfoy, though? We’ve been really busy today... Hm. Well, even if it were, that sounds more like a personal problem than anything I can help you with…” _Even though I taught him how to perform that spell…_

 

The auror sheepishly set his wand to his side and reached up to scratch his head as he slowly backed out of her office. A sign of defeat, Hermione noted. Harry was always so easy to crack. “I get it, I get it. You’re ‘busy.’ And not PMSing––I’m sorry about that. But if you see Malfoy, can you let me know?”

 

“Sure thing,” she replied.  

 

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute.” He went back into the office and peered under Malfoy’s desk, then behind the file cabinets. “Is he in here?” he asked accusingly. “Hermione, are you helping him hide?”

 

Resting her face in her trained expression of innocence and neutrality. “Harry. Does it look like I have time for this today? Doesn’t your department have things to do? Terry seemed strangely idle the other day.” she said severely, gesturing at the stack of papers and folders on her desk. “Please go. I clearly still have a glass ceiling to break after this… telling conversation,” she told him, faking bitterness.

 

“Hermione, you know that’s not what I”––

 

“Harry,” she warned him.

 

“Fine,” he finally said, begrudgingly.  “And are we still on for lunch with Ron later?”

 

The mention of her boyfriend’s name sent a lump to the pit of her stomach. “Y-yeah. I mean, I haven’t heard from him, but I’m sure he’ll show up this time.” Her voice carried a tone of sourness, but if Harry had noticed it, he chose to not address it.

 

“Well, I’ll see you at noon, anyway.”

 

As soon as Harry exited and Hermione heard him round the corner toward the staircase, she pushed herself out of her chair, letting Malfoy crawl slowly out from underneath the desk. “ _Falsetto_?” she asked when as he settled back into his station, the anxious lump disintegrating the moment her eyes met with Malfoy’s. Within seconds, the two burst into a fit of laughter.

 

\---

 

Draco wouldn’t say that they were close friends, necessarily, but they did spend a lot of time together at work and shared an office so that made them, at the very least, very close coworkers.

 

It wasn’t as though they became fast friends. When he started working for Magical Law Enforcement, Draco often found himself at odds with Granger, even when they were in agreement about a case. Before being able to greet one another civilly, they had to course through the countless hurdles childhood traumas, political disagreements, and pet peeves.

 

Their path to reconciliation encountered further obstacles when they discovered that, even when they were past their political differences, they still pissed each other off.

 

The problem, he realized, wasn’t that they were the same people that they had been as children. For years after the Second Wizarding War, Draco had worked to revise and unlearn his childhood indoctrination into blood supremacism as part of his probation. No longer tied to his family’s ideologies or fortune, he still at the top of his class and eventually apprenticeship at the Ministry’s Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office in spite of Perkins’s initial hesitations.

 

Still, butting heads with Granger felt like second nature. They had hated each other for so long, after all, that no change in his character could prevent him from making snide remarks whenever he could or her from rolling her eyes at him and retorting with equal brutality. And, after some time, he found himself actually _liking_ her and _looking forward_ to seeing her at work every day and sharing his latest scheme to get under Potter’s skin.

 

One evening, while they worked late, he asked Granger out to dinner. Not in a _dating_ sort of way, but as work friends who worked overtime and deserved to use the department’s budget to treat themselves to a cheap meal and firewhiskey. They had spent the afternoon and a portion of the evening pouring over the details of a difficult property case and failed to notice that it was nearly eight by the time they were finishing the last proofs.

 

Obviously, if his dinner proposal _turned into_ a date, Draco maybe would have welcomed the idea. Granger was pretty when she wasn’t sarcastically calling him out on a minor error or losing patience over his “need to make so much noise when you work. Jesus fucking, Christ Malfoy, could you _shut it_ for a minute?” On second thought, Draco mused, she was fairly attractive then too. They had only just started getting along for the first time since he was hired six months before, however, and so he didn’t want to push it.

 

“What do you say, Granger? Care to make a hungry bloke… not hungry?” He leaned against the door frame while trying to look as casual and unbothered as he could manage, letting loose strands of white-blond hair fall before his eyes.

 

Granger, whose hair seemed to have grown to gravity-defying proportions over the last three hours, leaned back in her chair, peering up at him from the rim of her  reading glasses. “Sure. Give me ten more minutes?”

 

“Five.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I’m hungry. And you must be too––you didn’t leave for lunch today, did you?”

 

“What’s it to you?”

 

“I’m just saying, you’re hungry.”

 

“Don’t tell me what I am, Malfoy. I”––

 

“Three minutes.”

 

She sighed. “Seven.”

 

“Fine.”

 

“You’re a terrible lawyer.”

 

Despite remaining differences, Draco could notice how _different_ they both were from when they had first encountered each other. She still looked the same, though she was older and replaced her school uniform with prim pencil skirts and work robes. But in the dim light of the Leaky Cauldron that night, he also noticed the soft appearance of her tanned skin, and how her curls, now dyed a lighter, honey-brown tint and pulled into a loose bun on the top of her head, seemed to beckon his fingers to run through them.

 

They talked until past eleven, when Tom had closed the kitchen and the bar had sent complimentary sherry to their table. Neither of them seemed to have noticed the time fly by so quickly, engrossed in friendly debates and personal facts about themselves. He learned, for example, that although Granger’s parents were something she called “dentists” (dental healers, he assumed), she had no interest in medical magic, and actually had a phobia of visiting doctors and healers. In that same conversation, Draco also shared, admittedly tipsily, his and his fellow male Slytherins masturbation routines at Hogwarts, making her cackle when he told her about the time that Snape had walked in on Theodore Nott trying to get off in the common room with a photo of Professor Sinistra from the school newsletter.

 

“That is _so fucked up_!” she cried out, making their fellow diners turn to look back at them. One thing that he learned about Granger, at this point, was how much she enjoyed using foul language. From the “bloody hells” to the “shitty fucks” to the (his favorite) “cunting bollocks,” her verbal repertoire was nearly as impressive as her ability to make the most mundane and dry case sound like a riveting and trailblazing case in a memo.

 

“What was Snape even doing there? McGonagall only showed up on Wednesday mornings for the routine check-ins with the first years.”

 

“It _was_ a bloody Wednesday morning!”

 

“Merlin. You boys were all equally disgusting! Wait, wait, can I tell you about what Seamus tried to do with the Fat Lady?”

 

“Granger, a gossip?” Draco laughed, noticing how her cheeks had turned a light shade of pink from all of their drinking.

 

“It’s the firewhiskey! Why and when did we order so much fucking firewhiskey?”

 

When they finally left, both drunk, she gave him a hug that lasted just a second too long and kissed him on the cheek.

 

“You’re good getting home?” he asked when she released him. “I could walk you to yours.”

 

“I’m good! The cold will sober me up. I live just around the corner, and I know you have to apparate, so…” But as she turned, she started to stumble on the cobblestone path, with Draco catching her just before she fell.

 

“C’mon, Granger. We won’t be able to finish that elf case in time if you break something tonight.” She reluctantly took his arm and let him lead the way.

 

He walked her to the front door of her brownstone three blocks from the Ministry, where her larger orange monster was waiting for her on the stoop. “See you Monday, then?” she said, taking her hand back from his arm.

 

For a while before this, Draco had suspected himself of being attracted to Granger. He didn’t date much on principle at this point, deeming his position in society too precarious to bother himself with trying to build a love life. But that moment outside of the Leaky Cauldron burned into his mind and became the source of way too many imaginative day and night dreams thereafter. When it came down to it, he had to admit to himself, he felt a lot more than just a platonic liking of Granger. He had a _crush_ on his coworker.

 

The next day, he found out by asking their receptionist that Granger was still with the thick-headed Weasley who owned the joke shop in Diagon Alley.

 

And while he supposed that he had nothing against Weasley now, he couldn’t, for whatever reason, get on as easily with him as he could with Granger and, to an extent, Potter. The red-headed wizard wasn’t necessarily a bad person. In fact, Draco thought, up until finding out that Granger had a boyfriend, that he wasn’t that bad of a bloke and was casually civil whenever he did see him. But the way that he treated Granger made Draco fume. From missing lunch dates, to forgetting birthdays and anniversaries,, to making disrespectful remarks about how much Granger worked, Weasley––though, again, not a bad person––was obviously a terrible boyfriend. And yet, as logical and clever as Granger was, his coworker seemed intent on continuing to be the object of Weasley’s abuse. But that was that and, Draco learned, Weasley was a conversation that was completely off limits. It was, in Granger’s words, “not your fucking business, Malfoy.” (“One day one of our clients, or worse, Clearwater, is going to hear you talk like that.”)

 

Many things changed over the course of two years working together. Granger’s monster passed away, at the reported age of thirty-three, and Granger increasingly accepted Draco’s offers to walk her home after work whenever Weasley forgot to meet her (which was nearly every day). They graduated from filling out spreadsheets and casting anti-theft spells on their files to actually sitting in on depositions and regularly meeting with the Aurors. And, most significantly, Draco had convinced Granger to covertly support him whenever he played a prank on Potter. One thing that did not change, however, was his strange infatuation with his peer, who seemed, as far as he could tell, completely oblivious of his feelings.

 

\---

 

“Butterbeer?” Malfoy had left just after lunch to meet with the head of the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects.

 

“How?!” Hermione  exclaimed.

 

Malfoy shrugged, smirking. “When have I failed to deliver?” He cast a quick spell to open the two bottles and make them pour themselves into their innocuous coffee mugs. “Cheers.”

 

“What are we ‘cheers’-ing for?”

 

“Your new haircut. You did get one, right? I’m not imagining it?”

 

“I’m surprised you noticed,” she replied. She was being honest. When Ron finally  showed up at lunch at fifteen to one, he had barely acknowledged that she was there, never mind that her hair was five inches shorter than usual. “But seriously,” said Hermione, taking a sip as she propped herself up to sit on his desk, “how did you manage it?”

 

“Well, you rarely wear your hair down, but when you do, it’s always just slightly past your shoulders, and it wasn’t today, so I thought”––

 

“No,” she interrupted, slapping him lightly on the shoulder and sending a jolt of electricity down his limb. “The butterbeer, Malfoy. How did you get it? I was convinced that Harry would at least put up guards or _something_ to keep you out for the rest of the day. And he hasn’t even tried to get back at you for this morning!”

 

“You know how Potter has that portrait of Dumbledore in his office…”

 

\---

The look on her face when he told her about his latest prank was worth having been caught by Potter while trying to charm the photograph of Albus Dumbledore to sing Celestina Warbeck’s “Flighty Aphrodite” during their lunch break. Weasley had, as expected, forgotten to show up on time, giving Potter the opportunity to go back to his desk to fetch his forgotten wallet. Rumor had it that he and Granger were in the midst of a tempestuous fight (something about Weasley abandoning her accidentally after a Quidditch game) and possibly on the verge of a break up. But to him, Granger looked the same as ever, cool and unbothered, as she took one of the mugs off his desk. Maybe it was just that: a rumor.

 

At least that was what Draco thought until the following week.


	2. Part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, it's all fun and games until Draco Malfoy catches a case of unrequited infatuation with his temperamental coworker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, kudos-ing, and commenting! 
> 
> I know that this chapter isn't too exciting, but trust that the last part will deliver!

After arriving late from her work-drink with Malfoy on Friday, Hermione found an owl waiting for her on her porch, perched high above the door with Crookshanks eagerly waiting for its descent.

 

“Gimp,” she greeted the owl, who replied with a low hoot. “What brings you here?” Without saying anything, the small brown bird dropped a letter at her feet. “Friendly as always, I see,” she muttered to herself as she picked up the letter before entering her home. Seeing that Gimp refused to leave she surmised that the owl expected her to reply right away. “Just a second,” she told him, her eyes scanning the contents of the short letter.

 

_Hermione,_

 

_Can I floo in in this evening around seven thirty? I think we need to talk._

 

_– R_

 

Hermione scrunched up her nose at the words on the parchment. The last thing that she wanted tonight was to fight with Ron.  Ron hardly ever made plans to visit her at her apartment these days. In fact, the last time that they had anything that could remotely be called a “talk” was when they decided that she would move out of their shared apartment on the West End (which he now shared with George) to live closer to the Ministry. That had occurred over a year ago. Setting her suitcase down on the small stool in her foyer, she gave Crookshanks a small scratch at the base of his tail before climbing up the stairs to her bedroom. Her townhouse was by no means a luxurious property, even though it was at the center of Diagon Alley, but it did testify to her hard work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Being a war heroine consistently solicited to give talks at international conferences and Ministry events also left her with a sizable income. None of this could compare to the properties that some of the older political and aristocratic families were accustomed to. She couldn't imagine someone like Draco Malfoy lying comfortably in the queen sized bed inside her master bedroom. Not that she ever imagined Malfoy in her bed at all, of course, but hypothetically, Hermione couldn't envision someone who grew up like Malfoy getting used to living in her brownstone. 

 

But she appreciated her home. Every room had wall to wall bookshelves, each lined up with every volume of magical or muggle literature that she collected over the years, enmeshed, side by side, in alphabetical order. Laying out her rumpled work clothes on the green settee by her closet, Hermione changed to her comfortable loungewear: a simple yellow knitted sweater and black leggings. Her hair, she noticed in the mirror, had remained in place despite having spent the last hour laughing and drinking with Malfoy.

 

_"I like this style, Granger," Malfoy said just before crossing the street. "It's pretty... sexy."_

 

_"Are you drunk?!"_

 

Recalling the compliment that Malfoy gave her before they went their separate ways, Hermione felt a warmth creep down to her thighs. She knew that Malfoy hadn't meant anything by it ( _Right?_ ). But it had been so long since anyone had paid her a compliment on her appearance, that she almost froze in disbelief.  _Don't be daft, Hermione. He's just Malfoy!_ she began to scold herself just before she heard the familiar sound of a guest arriving in her fireplace downstairs.

 

It had been so long since Ron had visited that having him in her living room felt nearly awkward. Then, the kiss with which he greeted her felt almost perfunctory, evoking none of the feelings of affection or excitement that its predecessors once had years ago.

 

"Tea?" she asked, and, without waiting for his reply, dashed to the open kitchen to brew a pot of an herbal blend that Padma Patil had gifted her for her birthday.  _The birthday_ , Hermione thought while looking at her boyfriend settling into a stool at the island separating them,  _that you failed to remember until a week after..._

 

“You were working late again?” Ron asked, interrupting her thoughts as he accepted  the cup that Hermione passed to him.

 

“Not exactly,” she replied, looking down at the dark liquid before her. “Malfoy and I were procrastinating again.”

 

Ron nodded. “You’ve been doing that a lot, I notice.”

 

“It was Friday. We don’t have anything serious going on right now.” Her reply sounded more defensive than she intended.

 

Ron raised his eyebrows. “You and Malfoy don’t have anything serious going on… right now?” 

 

“Ronald,” she warned him. They visited this topic once every so often, Ron’s unfounded suspicion of Malfoy’s “friendship” with her. She never took him seriously, of course; Malfoy had never exhibited anything but camaraderie towards her (unless calling her "sexy" tonight counted), and it was ridiculous to think that being work friends of different genders meant that anything was going to happen. Sure, Malfoy was now far from the slimy git he had been as a child and teenager, and Hermione noticed, objectively, that he was physically attractive. But for Ron to insinuate that anything had or would “go on” between her and her co-worker was ridiculous. They were just two people who happened to spend a lot of time together. Setting her tea down in front of Ron’s on the counter, she went back to the sink to fill a glass of water, choosing to not say anything further about the topic.

 

A year ago, however,  she would have taken the bait.

 

_“What do you mean, ‘what about Malfoy?’ What are you insinuating, Ronald?”_

 

_“I’m not stupid, Hermione”––_

 

_“Oh? Because it doesn’t sound like you’re being very smart.”_

 

_“Face it. You don’t want me there when he’s around. You’re always laughing and talking to each other as if everything is some kind of inside joke. Even Harry says that Malfoy told him that”––_

 

Ron sighed, holding the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb while resting his elbows on Hermione’s kitchen counter. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I wanted to bring up..." He paused for a moment, taking in a deep breath that told Hermione that Ron was about to say something that was both serious and uncomfortable. _Just like when he asked me to move in together..._ But instead of tensely dropping to one knee to present her with the keys to his house, he looked up at her with nervous and uncertain eyes before continuing. "This really should come as a surprise to you, but we haven’t been working for a really long time, Hermione. It’s been ages since it has, and I think you deserve to be with someone that makes you happy. We both do.”

  _Oh._

The muggleborn witch stared intently at the half-drunk tea mugs before them, swallowing hard as she processed the significance of Ron’s words. Did all of the effort really amount to this? Hermione hated failure; in fact, she feared any form of failure––academic, professional, or personal––more than any dark witch or wizard that she ever fought throughout her sixteen years of friendship with Harry and Ron.

 

Ron was right, of course. Their back and forth was not worth destroying whatever was left of their friendship. Calling it quits therefore meant healing the lacerations made by years of Ron’s resentment over not being prioritized and her anger for his lack of support and understanding. It only seemed like months since they began to be absent in each other’s lives, but both knew that the wedge in their relationship, and thus in their friendship, emerged the very moment that their teenage romance met the reality of their evolution into very different adults.

 

For what seemed like an eternity, Hermione and Ron talked––really talked––about their relationship. The anger, frustration, disappointment, and loneliness that she felt seemed to pour out of her the longer that she spoke. Rather than sadness or ire, however, their conversation left her feeling light and relieved, as if someone had finally taken the cap off a very carbonated bottled drink and let the fizz pour over, her kitchen now bubbling with the expression of things previously unsaid.

 

When all had been said, Ron reached out to grab her arm the back of his pale hand contrasting starkly against her dark-brown skin. When she looked up, she could see tears glazing over his eyes. They didn't say anything for a long time, simply staying like this with their tea growing colder and colder. 

 

“So,” she finally spoke, feeling her voice pierce through the strained silence. “What are we going to tell Harry?”

 

With a curl to his lip, Ron replied, “That you left me for Malfoy.”

 

Hermione smacked his arm. “As if he would ever believe you!”

 

“Hermione, this was supposed to be an _amicable_ break up,” Ron retorted, rubbing the spot where Hermione hit him while earning a laugh from his now ex-girlfriend. “Plus, you _must know_ he’s bloody head over wheels for you. He said as much to Harry like a year ago. My suspicions weren’t unfounded!”

 

This didn’t take her aback at all. Ron was known to exaggerate, but Harry took everything to the point of hyperbole. “That’s preposterous. Harry must’ve been joking. And it’s head over _heels_ , Ron”––

 

“Well, that makes no sense at all.”

 

“And that’s not true at all! I hate to sound like a broken record, but we really are just work friends! Plus, we’ve been over how bizarre it is for you to bring this up.”

 

“I’m just exercising my rights as a _friend_. I mean what I said––we both deserve to be happy,” Ron said before he stepped into the fireplace.

 

At ten twenty three that evening, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley’s relationship was officially over. And for the first time, Hermione thought that failure––in this case––was maybe not as terrible as she imagined even as a heavy mixture of relief, sadness, and anxiety  washed over her. Then came dread. As fine as she and Ron were with each other, she realized, the weekend ahead would be a total mess.

 

\---

When he arrived to work on Monday, two things surprised Draco. First, while he arrived early to move all of Potter’s office equipment down to the _Witch Weekly_ offices on the third floor, he discovered that his own office had already been compromised. Encased in a floating gelatinous glob, his desk, chair, and bookcase all hovered above his head, apparently impervious to any spell, charm, or hex that he cast at them. _Well played, Potter_.

 

Secondly, as he struggled to retrieve his work space, he noticed that, even when the clock on the wall struck eight, Granger was missing.

 

On Saturday, he received an interesting owl from Blaise, whose company rented the building opposite Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. In his letter, Blaise divulged the “juicy details” that “your favorite muggleborn with a bleeding heart is recently single. Thought you’d like to know, Draco.” Besides this and the usual buzz about Granger and Weasley’s volatile relationship throughout the fifth floor, no one could really confirm if the rumors were true. _Probably,_ he thought, _they got back together not long after_.

 

So why was Granger missing?

 

At eight fifteen, a note from Granger’s secretary informed him that his office partner had owled in sick for the day. This sounded like bullshit. Granger was never sick, and even if she was, she was more than capable of brewing any applicable potion to cure any common malady. Draco let out an aggravated sigh as he tried once more to recover his desk with a _bombarda maxima_ to no avail. This was not going to be his day.

 

When he finally got a hold of Potter later that day during their meeting, he decided to straightforwardly ask his pseudo-nemesis (“frenemy,” was the word that Granger would use, he recalled) about his office mate’s whereabouts.

 

“She hasn’t told you?” Potter replied. “Hermione broke up with Ron over the weekend. Between you and me, I think she's avoiding running into his dad and brothers today.” That was typical; outside of the courthouse or her professional causes, Granger absolutely hated confrontation.  _Exhibit A: dating Weasley for eight years._  A strange smile spread over the black-haired man’s face. “I’m surprised _you’re_ still here, though.”

 

With this confirmation, Draco tried to coax his face into the most neutral expression he could muster. “And why’s that?” he asked cooly.

 

“Malfoy, you know I haven’t forgotten that time when you told me”––

 

He felt his mouth dry up as the memory of confiding in Potter about his complicated feelings for his then new coworker during a Ministry event. This was shortly after their first drunken outing and Granger had shown up, looking radiant as ever, with Weasley, and Draco spent the majority of the night glaring dangerously at the red-haired man until Potter showed up, out of nowhere, and asked, “So how long has that been going on?” Too annoyed to dodge the inquisition that followed, Draco had foolishly implied what he felt for the muggleborn witch.

 

_“You like her?”_

 

 _“Yes, Potter, is that so difficult for your bird-brained mind to understand? How could I_ not _like her? I mean, have you seen her?”_

 

_Potter shrugged. “I guess that makes sense.”_

 

_“How long has she been with that idiot, again?”_

 

“That was a long time ago?” his reply came out less assertively than Draco would have wished. “Plus, why do you care?”

 

Potter leaned back on his chair with a smirk.  “I guess I just find it amusing. Plus, the other Aurors and I have an ongoing bet.”

 

Was there no one around him, except for Granger, who didn’t know about this?

 

\---

Blaise and Theo waved for him to join them at their table when he arrived at the Alley Pub. After work every Monday, the former Slytherins would convene at the pub situated just at the threshold of Knockturn Alley. Every time, Draco resisted the urge to keep up with Blaise, who could drink what seemed like gallons of grappa ( _Stereotypical bastard. He grew up in Chelsea!_ ) and still be the suave aristocratic smartass that could get Draco and Theo to divulge their innermost secrets. And every time, Draco would attempt to match Blaise’s tolerance with a series of firewhiskeys, only to end up, as Pansy Parkinson put it, “Hufflepuff girl wasted.”

 

“Hufflepuff girl wasted,” if Draco understood accurately, described a state in which one would, after a series of firewhiskeys or (if he felt like treating himself to something sweeter) cocktails, whine about how lovely Hermione Granger’s face, hair, nose, eyes, nails, etc. were until dissolving into a pile of incomprehensible and somewhat sad mush against the wall of their usual booth. And when “white girl wasted,” one would always rely on Theodore Nott to bring one home and put one to bed while reassuring one that “it was no problem. I’m used to it by now, Malfoy.”

 

“Nott, Zabini,” Draco greeted.

 

“Heard the news?” Blaise immediately asked, flashing a knowing smile.

 

“What news?”

 

“You do know that there’s a rumor going around that Granger left the Weasel for you, right?” He heard Pansy’s voice from behind him and he turned to see his friend levitating four drinks to their table. “I got you a beer, Draco. Figured that none of us wanted to see a repeat of two weeks ago just yet.”

 

Draco ignored her second comment. “There’s a rumor?”

 

Theo grabbed his drink, thanking Pansy before adding, “There _has been_ a rumor.”

 

Pansy  shrugged. “This morning, Brown said that Patil told her that she overheard Weasley talking to Potter at the Leaky Cauldron the other day. Think there’s anything to it?”

 

_Fuck._

 

Reading his friend’s panicked silence, Blaise leaned in to ask, “Draco, is there anyone else besides us who knows about you and Granger?”

 

“Zabini, there is no ‘me and Granger.’ But… I guess I might have told Potter once.”

 

“Potter?!” the three other Slytherins exclaimed in unison.

\---

 

Hermione prided herself in being above gossip. So, when Ginny visited on Sunday to tell her what Lavender and Pravati were saying about her and Malfoy, she decided to ignore it. _Silly bints_ , she thought, _it must be boring to spend all day writing customer service reports for Madame Malkins_. What struck her as odd was that the rumor had been confirmed later in the day by Harry.

 

She was walking to lunch with him on Thursday when her black-haired friend finally brought it up.

 

“So, I guess Ginny told you…”

 

She inhaled deeply, pausing to look at Harry before replying. “Honestly? I thought that silly discourse was over with my relationship with Ron. Harry Potter, how could you be such a gossip? You _know_ that isn’t true!”

 

Harry eyed her carefully. “As smart as you are, Hermione, sometimes I don’t get your desire to avoid the truth.”

 

She grunted in response as  arrived at their usual spot, a muggle café just around the corner from the Ministry. “Where did that rumor even come from, anyway?” she asked  as the waitress led them to their usual spot.

 

“Ok,” Harry began as they took their seats. “Now that we’re in public, can you promise that you won’t hurt me?”

 


	3. Part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, it's all fun and games until Draco Malfoy catches a case of unrequited infatuation with his temperamental coworker.

 

_One year ago_

 

Granger was too drunk. He could tell by the way that she had snuck a bottle of cheap red wine into her cloak as they left the Ministry Yule party that evening, tugging on his robes to follow her to their office. Two hours before, Draco had spotted her angrily scolding Weasley, her eyes bright with rage while the red-haired man rolled his eyes in annoyance. 

 

_“You know what, Ronald. If you can’t support me, you can just go !”_

 

 _“Fine," he heard Weasley reply sarcastically. "Maybe I will. I've had enough of your judgmental bullshit for the night_ _."_

 

_"When have I been 'judgmental'?"_

 

_"You didn't disagree with your dad, did you? When he said I wasn't good enough?"_

 

_"Ronald, I"–– Weasley crossed the room to the exit, not bothering to look back to see Granger's distress._

 

He hadn’t heard the rest of the conversation, but Draco proceeded to watch from a distance as Granger poured herself glass after glass of the too-sweet Zinfandel, her anger slowly dissipating into contended tipsiness.

 

“You know,” she began, “sometimes I really wonder if I should be here.”

 

“Well,” he replied, trying to lighten the mood, “we’ve been doing this almost every week for two months, so why should today be any different? Plus, it’s much cheaper than the Leaky Cauldron and you know my galleons are scarce these days.”

 

“No… what I meant was, here, in the Ministry. I never told anyone this, but my parents always thought I would go back to them… to their plans for me after graduation. My father especially wanted me to follow his footsteps and go to a good school, get a first at Oxbridge, or do a degree in America before working as a boring lawyer or banker or, worse yet, a doctor.” Draco didn’t know what half of those words meant, so he let her continue talking, nodding to let her know he was listening. “He always felt it was silly that I spent seven years,” she lowered her voice to a baritone, “‘fiddling around with sticks and dry plants instead of preparing for the A levels.’”

 

“But Hogwarts is a good school. Didn’t he know?”

 

“But Malfoy,” she started sarcastically, “ _anyone_ can get into Hogwarts.”

 

“Well, he couldn’t, could he? More wine?” She accepted the bottle and took another swig before handing it back. They were now seated on the sofa that Draco had bought for their office on the pretext that they could use it to make the large but somewhat empty office look more inviting to clients. Granger had protested and said that it made their office look lazy, but didn’t force Draco to remove it.

 

Now sitting leaning her head on his shoulder on said contentious sofa, she continued, “And that, I think, was the problem. I realized it too late, of course. After graduation, I _did_ go back and get a first––at Goldsmiths, though––while, by the way, working full time at Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Did he care? Of course not!” She was talking with her hands now, and Draco couldn’t help but find it irresistibly cute. _Shit, I’m in trouble._ “‘Hermione,’” her voice dropped again, “‘is this _really_ what you want to be doing? Killing yourself at work just so that some silly fairies and hobbits can get voting rights?’ He never understood––he couldn’t even if he _tried_! And don’t even get me started on how he is about Ronald.” The formerly tired tone of her voice had changed to exasperation, but thought of Granger’s obtuse father saying negative things about Weasley somehow pleased Draco, even if he didn't know exactly what hobbits were. “Sorry, am I rambling?”

 

“Granger,” he looked down at her, curling his lips into what he hoped was a comforting smile, “you’ve been rambling for twenty-six years. Don’t stop on my behalf.” He instinctively moved his arm to let it rest around her, causing her to lean on his chest. He couldn’t think straight, feeling almost as if a string was pulling him closer and closer to Granger’s face, which seemed now so close to his that moving just a millimeter would bring their foreheads to touch. Yet stinging sensation spread over his chest and willed him to pull back, clearing his throat. “More wine?”

 

As if sensing, even in her inebriated state, the tension between them, Granger followed suit, moving to the other end of the couch to sit cross legged and facing him. Grabbing the bottle, she finished its contents.

 

\----

 

_Present Day_

 

“You can’t seriously tell me that you have never noticed it. He’s been wanting to fuck the living daylights out of you since he started working at the MLE.”

 

“Harry! That’s crass!”

 

Her so-called friend, who wasn’t, thanks to Hermione’s fantastic ability to restrain herself from public displays of fury, sporting any bruises, laughed. “Yeah. Knowing his track record––oh, don’t give me that look, we _all_ talk––he’s not the wham, bam, thank you”––

 

“Harry.”

 

“––His wildest fantasy is probably to take you to a whisky or wine event at some antique bookshop or museum. Like some kind of muggle romance novel hero. And as much of a tosser as he is, I can’t say I would disapprove.”

 

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Muggle romance novels? You seem to think an awful lot about Malfoy’s dating habits. You sure _you’re_ not the one who’s intrigued? What is it that Freud says about resistance?”

 

Harry rolled his eyes, still smiling. “Right back at you. Plus, I’m not the one who practically beams every time that Malfoy steps into the room.”

 

“I do not _beam_!”

 

Harry lifted his hand, his lips creased from holding back his laughter. “Hermione,” he said, tilting his head to the side while giving her a knowing look, “the last time I saw you get this excited was when Gilderoy Lockhart taught DADA in second year.”

 

“Well, sometimes it’s nice to have someone to talk to at work,” she responded defensively.

 

“I have been sitting across Susan for the last three years and you don’t see her sneaking into your office to get me a butterbeer. Granted, Seamus and especially Ginny would be far less forgiving than Ron about it, but you get my point.”

 

Hermione searched her memory. She guessed Harry wasn’t completely wrong; her relationship with Draco sometimes toed the line between professionalism and flirtation. But that didn’t mean that he did all of those things because he _liked_ her. “Well,” she said slowly, “maybe Susan’s just not as nice as Malfoy.” Even as she said it, Hermione knew that she had taken her logical acrobatics too far.

 

Harry guffawed. “Susan’s a _Hufflepuff_ , Hermione!”

 

“Okay, _fine_ ,” she finally conceded, eyeing Harry carefully. “Maybe Malfoy and I have had these… _moments_.”

 

“ _Moments?_ ” Harry mimicked. “Helping him figure out how to jinx Dumbledore’s photo last week kind of moments or Malfoy sneaking butterbeer from our fridge to have a drink with you at the end of every week kind of moments?”

 

“How did you…?”

 

“Auror, remember?”

 

“Right. Well, not exactly. There was this one time when we were both quite drunk a few years ago, just after we started working together…” Hermione remembered the way that Malfoy’s cologne lingered with the scent of wine and firewhiskey when she held onto him as he walked her to her townhouse. It was the first time that the two had spent any significant time together and only days after one of the first of many difficult fights that she had with Ron. Were her sensibilities any weaker, Hermione had thought then, she wasn’t sure if she could have left it at just a hug. The way that Malfoy had looked at her the entire night made her feel more attractive than she ever had throughout the time that she dated Ron. In fact, she remembered thinking that she would not have minded if something _had_ happened.

 

Lost in thought, she didn’t realize that Harry was staring at her wide-eyed. “You don’t mean…” he stuttered.

 

“No! Merlin, no! You know me better than that!” she exclaimed loudly, making a few of the patrons surrounding them look over inquisitively. “Sorry,” she muttered quietly. “Nothing exactly happened. I was fighting with Ronald after a dinner with my parents before Yule and…. We just kind of… _hugged_. And I thought at the time that maybe something else was going to happen, but nothing did, so.” She took a sip of water and momentarily raised her right shoulder to dismiss whatever she was thinking, darting her eyes to ignore Harry’s exasperation and avoid further questioning. She could tell that her friend was itching to pressure her into telling him more details. “It doesn’t matter. You said he told you that he had, as you put it, a ‘thing’ for me a year ago?”

 

A look of defeat. “A year and a half.”

 

“That’s a long time.”

 

It was Harry’s turn to shrug. “‘Suppose it is.”

 

“And he hasn’t mentioned anything since?”

 

“Now who’s intrigued?”

 

“I swear, Harry. My wand is pointed right at the family jewels.”

 

“No, he really hasn’t. Ron and I were just”––

 

“Stupid?”

 

“––Joking…” Setting his silverware in the side of the plate, Harry sighed, knowing he wouldn’t get further than this. “Look. This is probably going to pass sooner or later.  I wouldn’t worry about it.”

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Because you feel the same or…?” Harry stood up after placing two galleons on the table to pay for his meal.

 

“Because evidence suggests that he probably doesn’t like me anymore, Harry. But I just feel bad that this is all everyone seems to be talking about this week.” Settling the bill, she followed Harry to the exit. “And I hate that he’s been avoiding me all week...”

 

“So you _do_ feel the same.”

 

“Goddammit, Potter.” Hermione couldn’t help herself. She kicked him in the shin.

 

“Ow! You promised I wouldn’t get hurt!”  

 

–––

 

By Friday afternoon, everyone in and affiliated with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement seemed to know about the conversation between Weasley and Potter at the Leaky Cauldron. Throughout the week, Draco made his best efforts to either avoid Granger ot keep their conversations to minimal small talk, using this ongoing meetings with Potter as an excuse to not remain at his desk for too long.

 

Granger meanwhile acted unbothered by the rumor mill, but seemed confused by Draco’s distancing. To be honest, Draco felt bad about his behavior. Halfway through the day, he found himself intensely missing their repartée. The back and forth with Potter that morning had been fun, as it ended up with Potter’s belongings covered in a thick, slimy liquid and Draco’s hair transfigured into a shade of magenta. But while he hadn’t seen Granger at all since lunch, he noticed that her belongings were still at her desk.

 

Halfway through the day, he was resolved, thanks to Pansy’s help, to confront the rumor issue head on. Pull the band-aid off, so to speak.

 

_“What could go wrong?” Pansy asked over lunch. “The worst that would happen is that she rejects you.”_

 

_“Exactly!” Draco blurted out._

 

_“But you also know that’s unlikely to happen.”_

 

_“No, Pans, I do not know that.”_

 

 _Pansy looked thoughtful for a moment as she set her pizza crust down and wiped her oily fingers on the cloth napkin at her lap. “Well, can you at least_ try _to win me ten galleons?”_

 

_Draco scowled. “Pans!”_

 

_“What?” she deadpanned. “Draco, it’s no better being safe than being sorry, and if you don’t tell her, you’ll probably regret it just as much as if you do and she rejects you.”_

 

Pansy’s words replayed in Draco’s mind. Of course she wasn’t wrong––which Draco hated to admit––but she was also Pansy, a fellow Slytherin friend who, for whatever reason, had ended up being wooed by a descendant of Helga Hufflepuff. What did she know about having a successful love life?

 

It was close to six when Granger finally returned to their office, upon which she cast him a look of surprise. “Malfoy, what are you still doing here? I thought you’d be gone. Also, what is up with your hair?”

 

“Had some paperwork I forgot to finish. And… I thought we deserved something stronger than butterbeer today since the property case tied up nicely.” He had filled their mugs with a fine Scotch whisky, while waiting for her to return from her meeting. “Also,” he added, pointing to his hair, “Potter.” Without saying anything, he stopped her as she raised her wand to point it at the furiously pink shock of hair that had replaced his usually pale blonde coiffure. “Don’t bother––it gets brighter with every magical attempt to remove it.”

 

“Figures,” she replied simply with a smile as she accepted the mug, clinking it against his before taking a small sip. “Thanks for this.”

 

They sat without talking on his desk, facing the wall and slowly drinking while the minutes ticked by on the clock above their office door. After a while, Granger’s voice interrupted the silence. “Has your hair really been like that all day?” Her voice trembled slightly, as if she was _trying_ to break through the awkwardness that enveloped the office the moment that she arrived.

 

Draco tried to hold back a sigh of relief, feeling disposed of the responsibility to begin their Friday night drinks with the morose conversation that Pansy convinced him would be a good idea to have. “Yeah,” he began, “Potter’s a real wanker when he wants to be. I bet he’s still cross about the Weaslette. More whisky?”

 

She held her mug out to let him pour their second drink. “Thanks, and, uh, yeah, he mentioned something about that over lunch. I’ve been so out of it this week that I’ve lost track of your little back and forth, I’m sorry to say.”

 

“You didn’t miss much,” he said, still struggling to feel at ease. “Plus… you probably had, uh, other things going on.”

 

Granger raised her eyebrows as she took a long mouthful of whiskey. “I guess you’ve heard?”

 

“It’s hard not to. Are you… okay?”

 

She nodded, closing her eyes briefly. “It was time to end it, to be honest,” she said. “I’d been holding on to it for so long that I didn’t realize that I had turned it into a project, you know––to not fail?” Her voice was low, but neutral as she stared at her right foot, which was dangling freely above the floor while the other was hidden beneath her, under the folds of her dark gray dress.

 

“Putting it bluntly, I wouldn’t say that ending a relationship with Weasley is much of a failure.”

 

“No?”

 

He shook his head, mirroring her as she shifted so that both her feet dangled from the desk.

 

“Hm,” she said. “I guess it is rather liberating to have a schedule free of the disappointment of getting stood up.” Her eyes widened faintly. “That might’ve been a bit too honest. What I meant was that it’s probably better that we’re not together like that anymore. We were never all that supportive of each other and probably would’ve ended up enemies if he hadn’t dumped me.”

 

“Don’t you reckon you’re being too harsh on yourself?”

 

“Maybe,” she replied in a small voice. “Sorry, have I been rambling for too long? I haven’t even asked you about your day.”

 

“Granger,” Draco said, curling his lips into a smirk, “you’ve been rambling for twenty-seven years. Don’t stop on my behalf.”

 

She let out a soft chuckle and smacked his shoulder lightly with the back of her hand.  Not saying anything back, Granger then lifted her hands to her hair and raked it back to pull it into a messy bun on top of her head. Draco could see that two top buttons of her long, loose-fitting sheath dress had come undone over the last hour, letting a glimpse of the swell of brown skin peeking through. Their work robes were both discarded on the couch, as was custom of their Friday night drinking, leaving him in a simple dress shirt and slacks, and her in her dress, which, customarily reaching just above her ankles, gathered just around her knees, concealing just enough to not risk immodesty, but revealing the tops of her legs. One of her bare arms, Draco noticed, suppressing a gulp, rested dangerously close to his own leg as she leaned back on her desk. She looked, Draco thought, nearly erotic. Granger leaned back and used her free hand to wipe a bead of whisky that had run down her chin. _Correction: outright erotic._ Was she trying to send him signals?

 

Pushing away thoughts of Granger’s eroticism, he moved to instead stand in front of her desk and lean against the windowsill behind her chair. The lull in their conversation offered the perfect opening for the conversation that he’d been rehearsing in his mind since lunch. “Hey, Granger,” he began, trying to assemble the courage that the second dose of firewhiskey should have summoned. “Now that you ask about my day, I wanted to say something about that thing that’s going around.”

 

“Thing?”

 

Idiot. “You know, about those rumors, I...” his voice trailed as he tried to sort out the correct words, feeling simultaneously incapacitated while oddly and torturously sober.

 

“It’s okay, Malfoy,” she interrupted. “Harry told me that it was a while ago.”

 

“Potter did?”

 

“Yeah. He mentioned that you might’ve had a crush on me or something when we first started working together––but that was a while ago, right?”

 

Draco swallowed, looking up at the ceiling while silently cursing Potter. “It was.”

 

“And that changed, right? Because we’ve worked together for so long and it was just a crush?”

 

 _Was this her way of rejecting me or could she really be that clueless?_ Draco wondered, feeling suddenly dizzy. He swore under his breath.

 

“Malfoy?” Granger was looking at him thoughtfully from the edge of her desk, as if trying to read his expression. “That changed, right?” Her voice was faltering.

 

 _‘It’s no better to be safe than sorry…’_ He suspected that Pansy probably got that from a song, but the phrase was now woefully stuck in his head. _Fucking Parkinson._ And the way that Granger bit her bottom lip as she repeated herself  made it even more difficult to suppress its conviction. “And if it didn’t?” He felt his voice crack as he countered her question.

 

“What?” Her face was blank.

 

“I’m sorry if that isn’t what you wanted to hear, but Potter’s right. I am, um, in love with you, and I need you to hear it from me.”

 

\---

 

Malfoy looked like he was in pain. When she got back to their shared office, Hermione had decided to shove all of the complicated feelings and thoughts that she had about the rumor of her coworker’s crush on her to the side for the benefit of their working relationship. Whether it was the whisky or the way that Malfoy’s rumpled work clothes and magenta hair boosted his allure that night, Hermione felt herself struggling to maintain her composure.

 

 _“...but Potter’s right. I am, um, in love with you, and I need you to hear it from me_ . _”_

 

As she jostled her mind for something to say, she felt suddenly as if somebody had released the anchor that had contained her to the desk for the last hour and her hands flew to the open collar of Malfoy’s shirt. Instead of _saying something_ , that rare feeling of liberation seemed to be telling her, _do something_.

 

Their office felt almost stiflingly empty, and silence surrounded them as Hermione traced the outside of Malfoy’s lips with her own. She had only intended to test Malfoy’s reaction, not anticipating the relief that flooded over her when his hands traveled from their prone place at his sides and into her hair, drawing her closer for what became a crushing kiss. He moaned against her lips hungrily.  

 

She felt as if she were melting into him. Her lips lingered on his for longer than she had meant them to before she slowly drew away, somewhat surprised by her impulse. “Sorry… we must be drunk.”

 

“I’m not really drunk,” he whispered, still ghosting his swollen lips over hers. “Are you?” Malfoy was now gripping onto her hips, tugging them close as if removing them would have her disappear. His rosy hair was disheveled and she could feel his heart throbbing against her own.

 

She shook her head. “No,” she said, letting out a breathy laugh before capturing his lips again. “But should we be doing this?”

 

“Granger, if you made me explain to you the way you make me feel, I would, but please… don’t make me spell it out for you right now.”

 

“Well,” she whispered, “what do you want me to say?”

 

He smirked. Even in the dim light, she should see his pupils dilated  “That you’ll let me take you to dinner tomorrow, for one. And, for two, that I’m not deluded and that you feel the same way?”

 

She kissed him again in response.

 

“Say it, Granger.”

 

“Make that breakfast?”

 

“Done. And?” He reached a hand up from her hip to trace her jaw softly with his thumb.

 

“Don’t make me spell it out for you right now,” she muttered softly, tilting her head to kiss him again, this time moving her hands from his chest to trail her fingers down to meet where his shirt was still tucked into his pants. He moaned when she began to unbuckle his belt, pushing the fabric of his pants down to reveal his hardened arousal poking through the soft fabric of his black boxer briefs. “ _Fuck,_ ” she whispered, earning a soft chuckle from him.

 

“Well, I was hoping we could take it slowly at first, but if you want to...”  A jolt of electricity spread over her as Malfoy backed her up onto his desk, laying her gently on the surface without losing contact.

 

Hermione resisted the urge to moan. One of Malfoy’s hands was now grasping her backside, kneading her buttocks as he pressed her hips into him while the other kneaded her breast, a thumb tracing slow circles over her still-clothed nipple. He continued to kiss her slowly, this time not letting her think as his fingers traveled to hitch her dress up from her thighs so that only his boxers and her now dampened underwear were limiting them from taking the next step. The intimacy of the sensation of grinding herself against him sent all remaining logic flying out of her mind, and all she could muster, in a brief respite for breath, was the word, “Sofa.”

 

\---

**Epilogue**

 

Harry Potter was an unusual man in many ways. For one thing, he hated weekends more than Mondays when his fiancée, a Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, was away for a game or practice. For another, he avoided being alone in his empty home at 12 Grimmauld Place and created a habit of sneaking out in the morning to catch up on paperwork at the Auror division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Finally, whenever he told Kreacher that he was going to the office to “catch up on paperwork,” Harry typically meant that he intended to go into the office to set up an elaborate prank n Malfoy’s office.

 

“Master’s too fond of the Chocolate Crisps when the blood traitor’s away,” his demented, racist house elf, Kreacher, muttered as Harry poured himself a second bowl of the Weetabix. “If Master’s not careful, Kreacher will have to mend Master’s trousers…Wouldn’t that be such a pity? Pretty blood traitor would be so disappointed if Kreacher let that happen...”

 

Harry ignored the old elf. He had stopped making excuses for the fool, despite whatever Hermione said. _Who died and made you the oracle of Delphi, Kreacher?_ Setting his spoon aside nonetheless, he stood and crossed the room to the fireplace. Throwing the greenish floo powder as he stepped in, he called out before disappearing, “Ministry of Magic, Auror Offices!” After all, being Harry Potter meant that he never had to flush himself down a public toilet.

 

Moments later, Harry arrived on the fifth floor of the Ministry Offices. It was Hermione’s missing stamp out card that alerted him that something was amiss. Though she was a workaholic, Hermione hardly ever stayed past six on Fridays––or, that was what he was led to believe until her confession on Thursday.

 

He let himself walk slowly down the hall, where he noticed a faint light flickering from Hermione and Malfoy’s office. Harry pressed an ear to the door, hearing behind it a rustling noise. _A robber?_ he wondered. It wasn’t unsual for witches and wizards who were under investigation to attempt to raid the MLE, but  Hermione and Malfoy hadn’t, as far as he knew, been working any dangerous or controversial cases of late. Who would want to sneak into their office to steal their documents at this hour. He turned the doorknob slowly, wielding his wand.

 

Harry Potter was an unusual man in many ways. None of those ways, however, involved a taste for rushing into his friends’ office to receive an eyeful of Draco Malfoy’s pale ass first thing on a Saturday morning. This was, he thought, the cruelest prank of all.

 

––

 

Awakened by a shrill screech, Draco turned to catch a view of Potter's terrorized face before the Auror sprinted down the hallway. “Reckon he’s happy for us?”

 

Granger, who looked more concerned than embarrassed, tugged Draco’s work robes closer to her chest. “I hope so?” she said, biting her lip. "It is his fault , after all."

 

He kissed the top of her head, letting his finger linger between the curls of honey and dark brown. “So is this what you look like in the morning?” he mumbled into her hair.

 

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you really going to tease me about my hair when yours still looks like that?”

 

“Is it teasing if I find you irresistible?” He moved his lips from her head to her jaw, nipping at the spot just below her ear that had elicited a suggestive purr from her the night before. “Now… about that breakfast…”

 

“Walk me home?”

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and commenting through this! There's so much that I wanted to fit in and do with this piece, but, alas, there's only so much time and space.


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